British Museum finally pieces together 2,000 year old Roman helmet

Experts at the British Museum in London have finally pieced together a Roman helmet, ten years after its discovery.

The helmet was unearthed in Hallaton, Leicestershire, after a metal-detecting enthusiast came across buried coins with his second-hand £260 metal detector.

Retired design and technology teacher, Ken Wallace, 71, called in experts who went on to discover an impressive collection of artefacts.

More than 5,000 coins, ingots and the helmet’s ear guard were among the treasures discovered, along with the remains of a feast of suckling pigs.

And now experts have finally pieced together the 1,000 fragments so that we can see the helmet in all its glory. The helmet features several scenes of Roman military victory, including the bust of a woman flanked by lions and a Roman emperor on horseback with the goddess Victory flying behind while a cowering figure, possibly a native Briton, is being trampled under his horse’s hooves.

It is believed to have been buried in the years around the emperor Claudius’s invasion of Britain in AD43.

Experts claim there is a 'distinct possibility' that it belonged to a Briton serving in the Roman cavalry before the conquest of Britain.

Painstaking: It took experts at the British Museum three years to piece together the 1,000 small fragments of the helmet

An artist's impression of what the complete 'Hallaton helmet' might have looked like, created by the British Museum

Precious find: Ken Wallace at the British Museum with the helmet he unearthed. He said he considers himself very lucky to have been able to see it reconstructed